Amythyst Kiah is a shape-shifter. Her music moves seamlessly among diverse genres and sounds like no one else’s.
“I don’t compartmentalize. I find all music is connected,” she said over the phone from her Johnson City, Tennessee, home. “My music is a conglomeration of what I have been listening to. What comes out of me could be inspired by anything from a Dolly Parton song to a symphonic metal-band grind to a funky Rick James hook. I understand music is marketed in certain ways, but I hear the connections between the sounds and find it silly to separate them.”
Kiah taught herself how to play guitar from CD-ROMs as a young teen after watching pop punk groups like Green Day and Blink 182 on MTV. Kiah also found inspiration in the raw, emotional music of pianist Tori Amos before attending East Tennessee State University and completing the school’s Bluegrass, Old Time, and Roots Music Studies program.
“I wanted to become the guitar-playing version of Tori Amos, but I also wanted to explore the musical roots of where I lived,” she recalled. Even as a young person, she said, she never divided music into separate categories. After graduation, she continued to explore the many varieties of musical styles, including classical, Afro-futurism, and video game soundtracks.
Her next big step was cofounding the Americana and folk supergroup Our Native Daughters, along with Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell, and Leyla McCalla. Kiah wrote and sang lead on the track “Black Myself” from the band’s debut album. The tune was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best American Roots Song and won Song of the Year at the International Folk Music Awards in 2020.
She then recorded her full-length solo album Wary + Strange three times with three different producers before feeling satisfied with the result. Kiah is proud of the way the album mixed the rock and trad sides of her without sacrificing one for the other. Rolling Stone included it in their list of “25 Best Country and Americana Albums of 2021.” The song “Wild Turkey” was named by Variety as one of the 50 Best Songs of the year. It is a purposely disturbing song about the suicide of her mother in Chickamauga Lake (a reservoir along the Tennessee River) when Kiah was 17 years old and how the singer processed the emotional toll this had on her.
Kiah’s next release was much less heavy, a four-track EP of playful covers called Pensive Pop (2022) that included Amos’s “Cruel,” Green Day’s “Hitchin’ a Ride,” Katy Perry’s “Chained to the Rhythm,” and an acoustic take on Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” She listened to these songs as a child and said they still resonate with her in the way that music heard when young never really leaves one’s consciousness. They are a part of her psyche.
Her latest full-length release, Still + Bright (2024), is a thematically more hopeful album than her previous effort. Butch Walker (Taylor Swift, Panic! at the Disco, Weezer) produced and recorded the disc in his Nashville studio.
“Butch has worked with artists in many different genres, which is the kind of person I wanted to work with to get the sounds I wanted,” Kiah said. “Plus, he leans into the rock side of things and keeps the energy flowing.”
This was the first time Kiah worked with co-writers on an album, including Tim Armstrong (from Rancid) and Sadler Vaden (lead guitarist of Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit). The record also features notable guest stars, including Billy Strings, S.G. Goodman, and Avi Kaplan. Goodman’s vocals on the cut “Play God and Destroy the World,” a song Kiah originally wrote in high school, are especially noteworthy. Critics have praised the album for its sonic diversity and the way it mixes fuzzed-out electric guitars with industrial electronic beats and traditional banjo romps. The artist says the banjo is a mighty presence on the record.
Kiah will be bringing her banjo with her and relying on it for musical support during her upcoming solo gig at xBk Live in Des Moines on Sunday, November 8. She says she will bring along several foot pedals and effects to get some unusual sounds from the instrument. Blues musician Buffalo Nichols will also be on the bill that night.
“I will be playing songs from my latest album as well as testing out some new ones I have written since,” Kiah said. “Being onstage by myself gives me the opportunity to engage with the audience. I can talk about the story behind the songs, see people’s reactions, and create a good vibe.” She has been to Iowa once before as an opener for Jason Isbell.
Kiah has performed at a variety of venues, from Willie Nelson’s Luck Ranch to punk dives, glam-rock discos, traditional folk halls, country clubs, and abandoned factories. She used to be concerned about how she was supposed to dress. “Trying to find a balance as a woman presenting herself onstage when I am not in the conventional realm of what a woman looks like as a Black and LGBTQ+ female was difficult,” she said. “There would be times when I would be so obsessed with my appearance that it would interfere with my life.”
She said she recently embraced just being comfortable. “I just put on what I have without thinking about it. I decided not to buy new clothes, which used to be one of my favorite things. Now I focus on my music on stage, as this stuff doesn’t take up my brain the way it did in the past,” she said.
Expect her to be at ease when she is on stage in Des Moines.